Rhetorical Devices in Literature: Definitions and Examples

Similicadence

This effect is achieved by combining two or more words that have similarities in grammar, such as tense, person, number, or gender:

"The flesh we are born in, we live in the flesh, the flesh will die." (A. de Guevara)

Paronomasia

This resource relies on the phonetic similarity of sounds between words or groups of words.

The expression is given by the contrast between the signified and the signifier of the related elements: phonic resemblance is maintained, but a sharp distinction exists in the concept they represent:

1. "I've sold, blindfolded." (Gongora)
2. "There are lives because they drink." (Quevedo)

Synonymy

This resource occurs when similar meanings are juxtaposed or listed. The expressive effect achieved is a recurrence of semantics, accumulation, persistence, or clarification:

"It has left opinion, fame, renown."

Polypote

Repeating a noun in several cases or a verb in different tenses:

"He will come forth to come eternal..." (Unamuno)

Epanadiplosis

This is starting and finishing a sentence or phrase with the same word (x...x):

"Grow your fury and the storm grows."

Also called redition or epanastrophe.

Metonymy

In metonymy, the effect is taken for the cause or vice versa, the author for his works, the sign for the thing signified, and so on:

The gray (old age), reading Virgil (for reading the works of Virgil), laurel (for glory).

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is the intersection of visual sensations, sounds, etc., among themselves and between sensations and feelings.

Pun or Calembour

It consists of the repetition of a word or a whole sentence, with the order of its elements reversed:

"In this country, people do not read because it is written, or it is not written because it is read." (Mariano José de Larra)

Networking

Its aim is to establish continuity between some sentences. The final word of one sentence is the beginning of the next, and the end of that one is the beginning of the next, and so on:

"Everything passes and all remains, but ours is to pass, pass making roads, roads over the sea."

Pleonasm

This resource adds words unnecessary for understanding an idea but rich in expressiveness. Its purpose is "emphasis," often emotional, as expressed by the speaker:

• "I saw it with my own eyes."
• "I ordered it myself."
• "Early morning, I woke up early."

Allegory

It is a continuous image. In it, all real elements are expressed metaphorically.